OLED (also referred to as AMOLED) displays are better than LCDs -- used on the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus -- for lots of reasons, Soneira wrote. They're "thinner, much lighter...[have] very fast response time, better viewing angles, and an always-on display mode," according to Soneira. The list goes on, including: "better color accuracy, image contrast accuracy, and screen uniformity...and they now deliver much higher peak brightness than LCDs." OLED displays can also be manufactured on flexible substrates, allowing the screens to be curved and rounded (as on Samsung’s Galaxy Edge). And the future? "In the near future OLED products will be foldable and flexible." One of the few exceptions is that for "mostly all white screen content LCDs are likely to remain brighter and more power efficient for a while."

I asked Soneira how serious this is, as we're now in 2016 and Apple has been punting on OLEDs (with the tiny exception of the Apple Watch) for a long time. "This time Apple is running well behind the display curve, when at one time it was ahead with both high resolution Retina Displays and 100% Full Color Gamuts on iPhones and iPads," he said in response to my email query.

So, when will Apple go OLED? Well, it won't happen with the iPhone 7, due probably this fall. "The biggest problem is that Apple needs the displays in very large quantities and wants several suppliers," Soneira wrote in his response. "Even if they don't switch all at once, and just start with a single premium model, they need at least 50 million displays - last year they shipped 160 million iPhones." And Samsung dominates the manufacture of OLEDs. "Samsung has over 95% market share of both rigid and flexible smartphone OLEDs, and they don't currently have sufficient additional capacity to support Apple," he added.

In a recent report, "Seeing the Future in Flexible AMOLED Displays," market researcher says that smartphone manufacturers, "including Apple, are looking to thinner and lighter flexible AMOLED displays to differentiate their products." With high-profile phones like the Galaxy S7/S7 edge, Nexus 6P, LG Flex, and HP's just-announced Elite X3 all going AMOLED, we'll see how fast Apple moves to OLED. The question is, will consumers care if Apple waits until 2017 -- or later?